Modular Multilevel Converter (MMC) is one of the most promising topologies for high power-medium voltage application. However, the use of MMC in variable speed drive applications is still limited. This is due to the fact that the fluctuation of the submodules capacitor voltage is large at low speed constant torque operation. This paper proposes an improved balancing approach based on Space Vector Pulse Width Modulation (SVPWM). The proposed method uses only one SVPWM, which not only simplifies the calculation but also reduces the submodules capacitor fluctuation and the circulating current in the MMC, thereby allowing the operation of MMC-based variable speed drive over the entire operating speed range and improve the converter efficiency. The closed loop operation of the MMC-based variable speed drive is verified through extensive simulations.

Pseudo-cyclic and cyclic loading were applied to CFRP-to-steel bonded joints built with two different CFRP laminates. In this paper, the strength capacity and bond-slip curves are presented and compared. The modes of failure are also described and associated with the types of material used, and the observed performances are correlated. The analysis of the results showed a threshold value for loading and amplitude level, below which the cyclic loading caused no detectable damage. For cycles above that limit, the region of the joints around the loaded end presented degradation reflected on the bond-slip stiffness and on the increase of residual deformation. It was found that the normalized dissipated energies either obtained from the bond-slip relationship or from the load-slip response had the same trend. The experimental data allowed also to establish a relationship between the damage developed within the interface and the normalized slip. A preliminary estimate of fatigue limit based on those data is suggested.

This paper presents a wireless energy transfer (WET) system operating at the frequency of tens of kHz. It treats the modeling and simulation of WET prototype and its comparison with experimental measuring results. The wireless energy transfer system model was created to simulate the electric field between the emitting and the receiving coils, applying the finite element method. The results from the simulation are compared to the measured values of the electric field emission from the wireless energy transfer equipment. In the recent years the interest in the WET technology, especially for the electric vehicles (EV) batteries charging, is rapidly growing. The WET systems pollute the environment by electromagnetic emissions. Due to the expanding use of this technology in industrial and consumer electronics products, the problems associated with the electromagnetic compatibility (EMC), and the adverse impact on the human health becomes highly important.

This paper presents the experimental results obtained in the wireless energy transfer (WET) system prototype based on coils: circular or planar. With these experimental results we can choose the tuning settings to improve the efficiency of power transmission of the WET systems. In WET for electric vehicle batteries charging, the coil shape and the range between the coils are the most important issues of those systems.

The paper presents a nonlinear analytical solution for the prediction of the full-range debonding response of mechanically-anchored FRP composites from the substrate. The nonlinear analytical approach predicts, for any monotonic loading history or bonded length the relative displacements (or slips) between materials, the strains in the FRP composite, the bond stresses within the interface and the stresses developed in the substrate. The load-slip responses FRP-to-substrate interfaces with a short and a long bonded lengths are motive of analysis and discussion. The solutions obtained from the proposed approach are also compared with other experimental results found in the literature.

Tourism is an industry that has been growing rapidly in the last few years and it is expected that it will continue to grow. Due to the evolution of technology, mobile applications are being increasingly used in all kinds of industries, being one of them tourism. Presently there are already a few mobile applications used to increase the experience of the user when visiting a place, but these mobile applications lack some important features. This paper describes the development of a mobile application with integrated routing algorithms used to increase the experience of the tourists when visiting the city of Avila, Spain. The tourist will have at their disposal real time information about all the monuments available for visit, a full set of predefined circuits with different visit times and degrees of difficulty and also the possibility to create an optimized or personalized circuit combining the user preferences such as visiting time and number of monuments to visit.